Yalta, Sunrise

As we arrived in Yalta at sunrise, both the weather and the view were different from what we saw in Odessa. Yalta, a health and summer resort, has a population of 98,000, with 180,000 in the general area, with miles of large nice-looking hotels lining the hills and the shore. There were many trolley buses on the street, and the people were friendly and were dressed nicely.

Our mandatory bus tour took us to Livadiya Palace, to show us the room where the famous “Yalta Conference” took place near the end of WW II, then another 15 miles or so to Aludka Palace, built by Count Vorontsoy in about 1830.

I objected to spending our time seeing only palaces. The Soviets are still not happy with the people who built such things, so I told the guide there should be two tours, one like this, and another for people who want to see how people really live. We had only about 30 minutes to walk around in the general area where the ship was docked, and we would have liked to look and walk the streets of Yalta, rather than spend our time visiting a palace.